​SSS in the News | Lack of social mixing is a symptom of inequality, not a cause

 

There has been much talk lately of a lack of “social mixing” across class lines. Some surmise that this is bad as the privileged ones will not develop empathy for those not equal in status. It is implied that a key solution to inequality lies in greater mixing. This is misleading, said NTU Head of Sociology Assoc Prof Teo You Yenn. “The lack of mixing is one way that inequality manifests in our society, but it is an effect, not a cause, of class division. The main mechanism shaping the development of friendships is not preference, but circumstances – how people find themselves in the same space. To address the problem, we must consider how those circumstances are generated,” she wrote in a commentary.

Read the article here​.